‘Killing rampage’ threat to California university ends in arrest

SANTA ANA, Calif. — A man who posted videos of himself holding guns and smiling while describing his desire to go on a killing rampage has been arrested after threatening a staff member at a private university in Southern California that he attended, authorities said Monday.

David Kenneth Smith, 39, was accused of making criminal threats after authorities received a report about an email exchange Smith had with a staff member at Soka University in Aliso Viejo last week.

Smith had been emailing the employee about discipline he faced for marijuana use when he attended the university in 2008. He then sent a link to a YouTube video showing him in a bathtub with a semi-automatic pistol on his chest speaking about the school, said Jaimee Blashaw, a spokeswoman for the Orange County Sheriff’s Department.

In the video, Smith said college employees “never liked me” and described being repeatedly fined for residence hall violations and accused of stealing another student’s belongings. He said he filed complaints with the school against several employees, including a dean.

Investigators said Smith had posted other videos of himself holding weapons and speaking of his desire to kill. Smith was arrested Friday, and authorities recovered nine loaded weapons registered to him.

“There were multiple videos of him talking about killing sprees, and in several videos, he’s carrying a firearm,” Blashaw said. “The threat was credible enough.”

In another video on his YouTube page, posted last week and titled, “What Good Does Killing Ever Do?” Smith talked about how a “killing spree” would be better than taking his own life, as he said his father had done.

A separate video shows Smith with a shotgun slung over his shoulder as talks about possibly going to a college campus and shooting students or shooting at police officers.

“If you’re going to go on a killing spree, you might as well do it equally. I’ve given it a lot of thought about this,” he says into the camera. “Who do you kill? I’ve come to the conclusion you just shoot everyone.”

The district attorney’s office charged Smith with one felony count of criminal threats. He was being held on $1 million bail and waiting to be arraigned Monday.

It was not immediately clear whether Smith had an attorney.

Smith has no criminal history in Orange County, Blashaw said. She said it was not clear why Smith reached out to the school, but when the exchanges escalated, the university was right to report it.

Smith graduated from Soka University with a liberal-arts degree in 2008, said Wendy Harder, a school spokeswoman. The school has 450 students and was founded by a Japanese Buddhist philosopher and educator, she said.